Essays

0 commentsIf you can bear to watch a woman with Attention Deficit Disorder reduced to a babbling, twitchy wreck, come with me as I schlep through the supermarket, attempting to keep track of grocery orders for...

0 comments"You must be his son. You look just like him."
My father lies propped up in the hospital bed, arms outstretched and palms up, as if he had passed out in an act of supplication. Chin on chest, mouth...

0 commentsEvery Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 1130, my calendar noted an unmovable meeting. It lasted only half an hour, but my assistant knew that on no account could it be moved or cancelled. And so,...

0 commentsThere's nothing quite like the roar of waves crashing on the beach to wipe away the cobwebs– unless it happens to be the scream of a US Navy F-14 Tomcat overhead. Whichever was loudest appears...

0 commentsWal-Mart wants to start a bank. Well, not exactly a bank. Wal-Mart says all it wants to do is provide customers with its own credit-card service on Wal-Mart sales, so it can trim costs on the...

0 commentsAt night, the two of them would lie back in the hot tub on their deck and look up at the stars. As they settled into the steaming water, the question was, Who would be the first to find the...

0 commentsIt's Friday, April 14, I'm working my way down an ever-expanding to-do list when I get a call from Joe Szakos, director of the Virginia Organizing Project, with the news that 17 students are sitting...

0 comments In the days leading up to Mardi Gras a couple weeks ago, I fielded some strange questions from camera-clutching visitors to the city of New Orleans, where I've lived off and on the for past year-and...

0 commentsIn a doctor's office recently, I was the only one of 22 adults who wasn't glued to the 27-inch screen hanging high in a corner of the waiting room. A cute little girl in a pink skort set and corn...

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Men should be banished from lingerie departments and intimate apparel stores everywhere. Well, no, not completely banished, just limited to shopping on a specified day of the week. Mondays perhaps....

0 commentsThe Republican Party appears to be coalescing around the happy assumption that, while Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, she cannot be elected. So– the self-delusive logic says...

0 commentsThink of the house you grew up in. Close your eyes and picture it: you walk up the driveway and feel a twinge in your stomach– so much of who you are is embodied in that house. There's the knob...

0 comments My 48-year-old doctor-spouse chalks up the pain in his shoulder to post-golf muscle strain and blames his indigestion on the 19th hole chili-dog. As both complaints are side-effects of a sport I...

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My 48-year-old doctor-spouse chalks up the pain in his shoulder to post-golf muscle strain and blames his indigestion on the 19th hole chili-dog. As both complaints are side-effects of a sport...

0 commentsWhen the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks met at the Super Bowl in February, they treated Americans to more than just the nation's most famous football game. They also provided a...

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When the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks met at the Super Bowl in February, they treated Americans to more than just the nation's most famous football game. They also provided a...

0 commentsGive your car a drink, save the planet, and end dependence on foreign oil. That's more or less the plan George W. Bush unveiled during his State of the Union message, in which he also declared his...

0 commentsLots of people get all their news online now. And why shouldn't they? After all, it's here, and you steer, so get over it.
Well, we got over our objections to giving away content when we started the...

0 commentsLots of people get all their news online now. And why shouldn't they? After all, it's here, and you steer, so get over it.
Well, we got over our objections to giving away content when we started the...

0 commentsThe president's admitted it. We're addicted to oil.
Our governor's admitted it. We can't get anywhere because everyone is trying to get somewhere at the same time in the same way– all alone in...

0 comments"I'm nineteen and my life is just beginning." That line from John Irving's novel, The Hotel New Hampshire, has been sliding around inside my head since the day I first read it in 1981.
It feels as...

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"I'm nineteen and my life is just beginning." That line from John Irving's novel, The Hotel New Hampshire, has been sliding around inside my head since the day I first read it in 1981.
It...

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Delegate Ben Cline of Amherst [R-Rockbridge] has proposed a bill to establish a sales tax holiday in August for the purchase of school supplies and clothing. Other members of the Virginia...

0 commentsCan any relationship survive a broken foot? I think not. Love is based fundamentally on one's ability to walk away from the beloved and then return when the beloved has stopped ranting.
As it says in...

0 commentsMy resolution for 2006 is...
David Slutzky: "To justify the support and confidence the Rio District voters showed me on Election Day.
Robert Harllee: "To go to Italy again... and again, and again...

0 commentsThere you are, standing awkwardly in a circle, nibbling on a pretzel, sipping cheap Chardonnay and making polite conversation.
Under your breath, you're still furiously reciting the well-rehearsed...